Notes / Commercial Description:
Made with only grade-A Tahitian vanilla beans, Tanilla carries a smooth chocolate flavor complemented by the delicate intensity of vanilla beans, and a rich aroma of coffee.

Reviews by Auraan:

Poured a deep brown, almost black, with a thin tan head that dissipated to a tan ring, leaving a slight bit of lacing. Looks quite nice, but a bit dark for a porter. Scents of roast malt, vanilla, and slight coffee. A good porter scent with the nice addition of vanilla. Flavors of roast malt, slight dark chocolate and black coffee and some slight sweetness throughout, finishes with more black coffee and a slight hint of vanilla at the end. Aftertaste is bitter with black coffee and dark chocolate. A good classic porter flavor with a nice bit of vanilla. Mouthfeel is medium bodied, slightly thick, with low carbonation. About half-way between a porter and a stout and quite easy to drink. Overall quite the nice vanilla porter, it drinks smooth and has the nice flavor of a porter supporting the vanilla.

More User Reviews:

Brewed with grade-A Tahitian vanilla beans shows a large emphisis on this character though less on the “Porter” side on things. Faint cordial or cooking extract flavor in the middle. Subtle chocolate and coffee flavors but no real burnt or roasted character and could easily be confused with a Brown Ale. Is it tasty? Yes. Is it enjoyable? Sure, why not but there is still something left to be really desired here.

Pours a light brown, not much head or retention, couldn't even tell what the color of the head was it was so thin. Mild coffee aroma to it. Didn't pick up any vanilla.

Taste, thin body, seemed more like a brown ale than a 'robust' porter, watery. Vanilla is extremely muted, sugar more dominant than vanilla. Little to no hop flavor. Compared to every other vanilla beer I've had, this one just didn't cut it.

$7 a bottle is about twice as much as I'd pay for this beer. You can get a breckenridge 6 pack of Vanilla Porter for that price, and actually enjoy it for what it is advertised as. Liked this more in its demo stage at the Brew Ha Ha a few years back.

Pours a VERY dark and remarkably ruby tinted clear liquid covers by a medium dense and well-proportioned tan head. The head has very good retention but leaves little lacing. [4.25]

The aroma [2.75] is disappointing. Too much like a sweet liqueur, especially after warming when the alcohol esters are a little too prevalent, a trace of dankness, and the vanilla seems less subtle than desired.

The flavor, in contrast, is rather good. The alcohol remains adequately hidden, there is no unpleasant dankness, and it is not objectionably sweet. The vanilla addition does seem a bit overdone. Plenty of dark malt with a hint of smoke.

This beer pours a clear, very dark orange brick-tinted brown colour, with three fingers of puffy, rocky, and chunky beige head, which leaves some random splattered lace around the glass as it slowly subsides.

The carbonation is adequate for the job at hand, via its supportive frothiness, the body a kind of weak medium weight, and more or less smooth, with just a hint of damp smoke taking a minor tithe here. It finishes off-dry, the muted caramel/toffee contending with some limping to the end vanilla.

Overall, this one starts off well, but then loses steam rather quickly - it's not a bad brew, but it seems to have an identity crisis. The guest vanilla doesn't really do much that could be considered noteworthy, and the remaining beer doesn't exactly convince me of its porter chops. Yeah, much gets misplaced in the mire here, I'm afraid.

Taste - A lot of natural vanilla favoring upfront, dominates much of the roasted malt aspect of the beer. Very little in the way of classic porter flavors, opting instead for what I can only describe as a "french vanilla ice cream topped with a sparse amount of mocha flavored topping". Finishes with a tinge of bitter coffee flavoring.

Mouthfeel - Medium bodied with a fair amount of carbonation. Smooth and easy to drink. Finishes with a bit of sharpness.

Overall - Not a bad beer overall, but far from anything you might associate with your classic American porter. Too much dominating vanilla character. Might make for a hell of a root beer float partner, but in so far as beer is concerned, it's so-so, and definitely not worth the $7 price tag it comes with.

Light bodied with moderate carbonation. Prickly and lively in the mouth and goes down filmy. Finish is oily with a lingering aftertaste. A bit thin.

If someone were to make a vanilla coca-cola beer, this would be it. It's not exactly representative of the porter style though. A bit too sweet and a touch too thin. Still, I could see how some would appreciate it.

A half finger of tan head on a black body.
The aroma is single-mindedly vanilla.
The taste is moderately sweet moving sweeter at the end. The middle has an unexpected bitterness. The profile is a bit disjointed.
Smooth texture with low carbonation and thicker body.
If you like sweetness this is for you.